Sasha

'You want me to lie?' Jaryd asked incredulously.

His father wiped his lips with a bony hand. 'Bright as a bonfire, this lad.'

'The Falcon Guard were there too! You can't get all of them to lie! Soldiers spread gossip worse than housewives!'

'Boy's got a point,' said Lord Arastyn.

Great Lord Aystin waved his hand. 'Gossip, there's always gossip. Gossip also says that Prince Krystoff never died, that he turned into a great grey wolf and can still be heard near the Hadryn border, howling at the moon. It's what we say that matters; the king can't act on gossip. Sashandra Lenayin killed Reynan Pelyn. Didn't she, my son?'

Ten

Upon the late-afternoon ride out to Spearman's Ridge, a sharp wind began from the north and cloud formed, as if out of nowhere, rolling in a dark, swirling mass above the hills. Riding homeward at a moderate gallop, Sasha fancied the air smelled of rain, cold and gusting, as the trees shifted and groaned uneasily in the thunder of her passing.

Returning home, she unsaddled and washed down the colt, arranging feed and checking all over. She then saddled a filly, and was riding it past the house in the darkening, blustery afternoon, when she saw Kessligh leaning upon the fence about the vegetable patch. She steered past the vertyn tree toward him.

'Where is Alden?' she asked.

'Walking. His legs needed stretching.'

'If I'm to make Rathynal, I must leave tomorrow,' Sasha said shortly. 'You'll be leaving too?'

Kessligh said nothing. He looked at her, with wry consideration. Then 'Be quick with the ride, we've some exercises before sundown and it's about to pour.'

'She needs a good gallop,' Sasha said darkly, patting the filly's neck as the young horse fretted and tossed, smelling the rain in the air. 'Are you leaving for Petrodor?'

'Quick, I say,' Kessligh said, with a hard edge to his eye. 'You're underdone yourself.'

Sasha glared. 'Fine,' she snapped, and kicked with her heels. The filly shot off across the lower slope with a startled snort, straight for the path to the road.

The rain began even as she reached the foot of Spearman's Ridge, light specks of moisture that stung in her eyes as she turned back for home. The filly's condition seemed good and so she held to a fast gallop for a long stretch up the winding incline she had come. The rain grew heavier, stinging her face, and she held a careful line through the fast corners, knowing well where the road could become treacherous for the unwary. Soon she was partly drenched, and rivulets of water ran across the road in little streams.

The road remained rough where Kumaryn's force had ridden, hundreds of hooves churning the surface. They had camped last night upon the fields above Baerlyn and then departed the following morning. Lord Kumaryn, she suspected, would head straight for Baen-Tar-already the other lords would have gathered for feasting, games and celebrations before the serious business began. She had little interest in arriving so early herself. Some more time with Sofy would be nice. The extended company of so many nobles and lords would not be.

Predictably, the rain stopped. Sasha wasn't fooled-approaching northerly weather in Lenayin was always as such, first some showers, then a break, and then a torrential downpour to send even the snails scurrying for cover.

She returned the second horse with due attention to its condition, then descended from the stables to find Kessligh waiting with a pair of stanches, his own banda padding already strapped to his torso and thighs.

'High defence,' he told her as she strapped on the banda. There was an unusual urgency to his manner and a grimness beyond even his usual, hard discipline. 'You jarred your arm defending from your horse at Perys-that's partly balance and partly upper-body strength. A girl needs to work on it extra hard.'

Sasha shook her head impatiently as she tightened the straps. 'It was bad balance, I wasn't set…

'Sasha,' Kessligh said firmly, 'strength is the foundation. Hathaal is not all of svaalverd, even the greatest serrin female fighters could not escape strength… els i'as hathaal, strength within form. Lenay men waste time building power for power's sake… a svaalverd fighter must build strength and flexibility as the demarath alas'an hathaal.'

Sasha fed the torso straps about her back. 'I'm as strong as I need to be for what I need…'

'Speak Saalsi,' Kessligh instructed. 'You're tripping your tongue already.'

Sasha took a deep breath, trying to order her thoughts. 'I have sufficient power across the dimensions,' she said… or thought that she said. So many words in Saalsi had multiple translations depending on context. 'I cannot master all things simultaneously… 1 need to focus my training or…'

'Focus is manifold,' Kessligh replied, in far more fluent and commanding Saalsi. 'You separate the inseparable. All is one. I have only ever taught you one thing. Draw it into your centre. Find the symmetry. You'll find that each new thing I teach is not truly new, only a variation of that one thing which you already know.'

Sasha frowned as she finished her straps. Gave a yank of hard leather upon the cold, wet shirt beneath. Confusion aside, Saalsi described the svaalverd far better than Lenay ever could… or Torovan, for that matter. A word could be one thing, or it could be another, with a subtle shift of contextual grammar… just as a svaalverd stroke could be many things, either offensive or defensive, depending on the slightest slide of a foot, or the angle of a wrist to the hilt and blade. Saalsi forced her to think, to consider every word. Sometimes she thought that was also Kessligh's intention.

They began with a series of high offensive combinations, Kessligh attacking with rare speed and fury. Sasha defended each with a rapid retreat and flashing stanch, occasionally feinting or misdirecting to a sidestep for the offensive counter… yet rarely, today, did her counterattacks find success. Always Kessligh's strokes found the limits of her high-arm extension, straining her shoulders as her arms struggled to hold their form above her head. Once, she simply lost the grip with a hard impact, the stanch snapping back to clip her skull as she ducked. Another blow caught her a glancing strike on the forearm as she hissed in pain and clutched at the bruise. The next time an attack came from that quarter, she was ready with a hard slash and counter… yet Kessligh's own reverse caught her hard across the middle with a lightning thud! upon the banda that drove breath from her lungs.

'You overcompensate,' he told her in hard, calm Saalsi. Wind whipped the untidy hair about his brow, as wild as the rugged lines of his face. 'You know that's your weakness. You overcompensate and leave your opposing quarter unguarded. A good fighter or a lucky fighter may find that opening and split you. If you were less lazy on the arm strength, you'd be better.'

Sasha breathed hard, regaining her composure as she leaned upon her stanch. 'If I build too much shoulder strength,' she said through gritted teeth, 'I get stiff. Stiffness is the surest way to limit my extension…'

'Bhareth'tei, not bhareth'as,' Kessligh said. 'You're implying the theoretical, this is practical.' Sasha rolled her eyes in exasperation. 'Combat is the place where the unlikely becomes probable,' he continued. 'You do not think your weakness great, yet I exploit it even now. Few soldiers ever see the stroke that kills them. Once more.'

The resulting session gave her a whole new set of bruises and the very nasty suspicion that Kessligh had been going easy on her, even during her better bouts against him in the past. Certainly he'd warned her of the need to improve her high extension for a long time, but she could not recall him having exploited it so ruthlessly before. And she'd thought she'd been approaching his standard. It was time, it seemed, to think again. Like on so many things, of late.

Finally her late swing barely intercepted a slashing cut that collected her arm and cracked the left side of her head. She stumbled to one knee, clutching a hand over her ear, as her head rang like the inside of a great temple bell. Kessligh, crouching opposite, held her shoulder to be sure of her balance. When she did not fall, he stared into her eyes, drawing her attention.

'Sasha. Sasha, are you well? Focus on me.' She tried, though it hurt. She brought the hand away from her ear and looked at it. There was blood on her fingers, though not much. A small cut. Kessligh's perfunctory glance proved as much. 'Slow and sloppy, that's what happens when your shoulders get tired so quickly. Watch my fingertip.'